Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) is a relatively well known multiplexing technique for communication systems. OFDM communication systems can be used to provide multiple access communication, where different users are allocated different orthogonal tones within a frequency bandwidth to transmit data at the same time. In an OFDM communication system, the entire bandwidth allocated to the system is divided into orthogonal tones. In particular, for a given symbol duration T available for user data transmission, and a given bandwidth W, the number of available orthogonal tones F is given by WT. The spacing between the orthogonal tones Δ is chosen to be 1/T, thereby making the tones orthogonal. In addition to the symbol duration T which is available for user data transmission, an additional period of time Tc can be used for transmission of a cyclic prefix. The cyclic prefix is prepended to each symbol duration T and is used to compensate for the dispersion introduced by the channel response and by the pulse shaping filter used at the transmitter. Thus, although a total symbol duration of T+Tc, is employed for transmitting an OFDM symbol, only the symbol duration T is available for user data transmission and is therefore called an OFDM symbol duration.
In prior OFDM techniques, an OFDM signal is first constructed in the frequency domain by mapping symbols of a constellation to prescribed frequency tones. The signal constructed in the frequency domain is then transformed to the time domain by an inverse discrete Fourier transform (IDFT) or inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) to obtain the digital signal samples to be transmitted. In general, symbols of the constellation have a relatively low peak-to-average ratio property. For example, symbols of a QPSK constellation all have the same amplitude. However, after being transformed by the IDFT or IFFT, the resultant time domain signal samples are the weighted sum of all the symbols, and therefore generally do not preserve the desirable low peak-to-average ratio property. In particular, the resulting time domain signal typically has a high peak-to-average ratio.
Existing techniques for implementing OFDM communication systems can be highly inefficient due to the relatively high peak-to-average ratio when compared with other signaling schemes, such as single carrier modulation schemes. As a result, existing OFDM techniques are not well suited for a wireless multiple access communication network with highly mobile users because the high peak-to-average ratio of the transmitted signal requires a large amount of power at the base station and at the wireless device. The large power requirements result in short battery life and more expensive power amplifiers for handheld wireless communication devices or terminals. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an OFDM technique which reduces the peak-to-average ratio of the signal to be transmitted, while simultaneously taking advantage of the larger communication bandwidth offered by an OFDM communication system.